Royal Society of Tasmania

Last updated

Royal Society of Tasmania
FormationOctober 1843 (1843-10)14

| type = Statutory corporation | headquarters = Hobart, Tasmania, Australia | former_name = Botanical and Horticultural Society of Van Diemen's Land | website = www.rst.org.au }}

Contents

The Royal Society of Tasmania (RST) was formed in 1843. It was the first Royal Society outside the United Kingdom, and its mission is the advancement of knowledge. [1]

The work of the Royal Society of Tasmania includes:

The Patron of the Society is Her Excellency, Professor, the Honourable Kate Warner AM, Governor of Tasmania. [1]

History

The Royal Society of Tasmania coat of arms carved by Nellie Payne in 1930 The Royal Society of Tasmania coat of arms.jpg
The Royal Society of Tasmania coat of arms carved by Nellie Payne in 1930

The Society was founded on 14 October 1843 at a meeting convened by Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, Lieutenant Governor, as the Botanical and Horticultural Society of Van Diemen’s Land. Its original aim was to ‘develop the physical character of the Island and illustrate its natural history and productions’. [2] Established under its own Act of the Tasmanian Parliament, the Society is permitted it to create its own By-Laws. [3]

In its early years, the Society was responsible for much of the work in founding the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, and also began building up substantial collections of both art and natural history specimens, all housed in The Royal Society of Tasmania Museum. These collections became the basis of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in 1885, when the Society gave them to the Government. [3]

The Society also built up a substantial Library. In September 1930 a new library was opened which held more than 20,000 books and pamphlets. The society’s coat of arms, carved in wood by local artist Nellie Payne was presented at this time. [4]

A branch of the Society was formed in Launceston in 1853. It lapsed but was reconstituted in 1921 and has continued since then. [1]

In 1934 the ornithologist Jane Ada Fletcher became the first woman to give a lecture before other members. [5]

The Tasmanian Society of Natural History

Drawing its inspiration from the illustrious original Royal Society founded in London in 1660, the Royal Society of Tasmania is the oldest royal society outside the United Kingdom, having had a continuing existence since 1843. Earlier bodies include the 1837 formation of the Tasmanian Society of Natural History by Sir John Franklin assisted by Ronald Campbell Gunn. [6]

Queen Victoria became Patron of the Botanical and Horticultural Society of Van Diemen’s Land in 1844 and the name was changed to The Royal Society of Van Diemen’s Land for Horticulture, Botany and the Advancement of Science. Under the current Act of Parliament, passed in 1911, the name was shortened to The Royal Society of Tasmania. [7]

Sesquicentenary

On the event of the sesquicentenary of the Society in 1993 it produced the volume Walk to the West to publish James Backhouse Walker's diary of a walk in 1887, including William Piguenit's paintings from that journey.

Membership and activities

In 2017 the Society's membership numbered about 350 from throughout Tasmania and beyond, meeting in Hobart and Launceston. The Society is administered by a Council comprising elected and ex officio members. The membership of the Royal Society of Tasmania is open to all. The priorities of the Society are addressed through lecture programmes, panel discussions, symposia, excursions, publications including the peer reviewed annual journal Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, and a library. Eminent scholars are recognised through various awards and bursaries. [7]

The Society is currently based in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart. The Society’s library collection is now based within the University of Tasmania Morris Miller Library, Sandy Bay Campus. [8]

The Northern Chapter is based at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston.

Truganini

Prior to her death Truganini had pleaded to colonial authorities for a respectful burial, and requested that her ashes be scattered in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. She feared that her body would be dissected and analyzed for scientific purposes as Aboriginal Tasmanian Wiliam Lenne's body had been. Despite her wishes, within two years, her skeleton was exhumed by the Royal Society of Tasmania and later placed on display.

Related Research Articles

The history of Tasmania begins at the end of the Last Glacial Period when it is believed that the island was joined to the Australian mainland. Little is known of the human history of the island until the British colonisation of Tasmania in the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davey Street, Hobart</span> Street in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Davey Street is a major one way street passing through the outskirts of the Hobart City Centre in Tasmania, Australia. Davey street is named after Thomas Davey, the first Governor of Van Diemen's Land. The street forms a one-way couplet with nearby Macquarie Street connecting traffic from the Southern Outlet in the south with traffic from the Tasman Highway to the east and the Brooker Highway to the north of the city. With annual average daily traffic of 37,200, the road is one of the busier streets in Hobart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Lomond (Tasmania)</span> Mountain in the north of Tasmania

Ben Lomond is a mountain in the north-east of Tasmania, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Glover (artist)</span> English painter

John Glover was an English-born artist. In later life he migrated to Van Diemen’s Land and became a pastoralist during the early colonial period. He has been dubbed "the father of Australian landscape painting."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronald Campbell Gunn</span> Australian politician

Ronald Campbell Gunn, FRS, was a South African-born Australian botanist and politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parliament House, Hobart</span> Building in Tasmania, Australia

Parliament House, Hobart, located on Salamanca Place in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, is the meeting place of the Parliament of Tasmania. The building was originally designed as a customs house but changed use in 1841 when Tasmania achieved self-government. The building served both purposes from 1841 to 1904, when the customs offices were relocated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tasmanian emu</span> Extinct subspecies of bird

The Tasmanian emu is an extinct subspecies of emu. It was found in Tasmania, where it had become isolated during the Late Pleistocene. As opposed to the other insular emu taxa, the King Island emu and the Kangaroo Island emu, the population on Tasmania was sizable, meaning that there were no marked effects of small population size as in the other two isolates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Duterrau</span> English painter (1767–1851)

Benjamin Duterrau was an English painter, etcher, engraver, sculptor and art lecturer who emigrated to Tasmania. There he became known for his images of Indigenous people and Australian history paintings.

The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) is a museum located in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. The QVMAG is the largest museum in Australia not located in a capital city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span> Art and history museum in Hobart, Australia

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) is a museum located in Hobart, Tasmania. The museum was established in 1846, by the Royal Society of Tasmania, the oldest Royal Society outside England. The TMAG receives 400,000 visitors annually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Watt Beattie</span> Australian photographer

John Watt Beattie was an Australian photographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Barrow</span> Mountain in Tasmania, Australia

Mount Barrow is a mountain in the northern region of Tasmania, Australia. With an elevation of 1,406 metres (4,613 ft) above sea level, the mountain is located 22 kilometres (14 mi) east-north-east of Launceston. The mountain habitat is a mixture of temperate old growth rainforest, subalpine and alpine landscapes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colony of Tasmania</span> British colony (1856–1901)

The Colony of Tasmania was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The possibility of the colony was established when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Australian Constitutions Act in 1850, granting the right of legislative power to each of the six Australian colonies. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which they passed in 1854, and it was given royal assent by Queen Victoria in 1855. Later in that year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856, the newly elected bicameral parliament of Tasmania sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Tasmania was often referred to as one of the "most British" colonies of the Empire.

Norman James Brian Plomley regarded by some as one of the most respected and scholarly of Australian historians and, until his death, in Launceston, the doyen of Tasmanian Aboriginal scholarship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Buelow Gould</span> English and Van Diemonian painter

William Buelow Gould was an English and Van Diemonian (Tasmanian) painter. He was transported to Australia as a convict in 1827, after which he would become one of the most important early artists in the colony, despite never really separating himself from his life of crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Backhouse Walker</span> Australian solicitor and historian (1841–1899)

James Backhouse Walker, was an Australian solicitor and historian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Hunter (architect)</span>

Henry Hunter (1832–1892) was a prominent architect and civil servant in Tasmania and Queensland, Australia. He is best known for his work on churches. During his life was also at various times a state magistrate of Tasmania, a member of the Tasmanian State Board of Education, the Hobart Board of Health, a Commissioner for the New Norfolk Insane Asylum and President of the Queensland Institute of Architects.

Julie Gough is an artist, writer and curator based in Tasmania, Australia.

William Henry Breton was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy who wrote the memoirs Excursions in New South Wales, Western Australia and Van Dieman's Land, during the years 1830, 1831,1832 and 1833, first published in 1833 and Scandinavian Sketches, or, A Tour in Norway, published in 1835. The books resulted from private visits to Australia, or New Holland as it was then known, in 1829-30 and 1832-33 and to Norway, Sweden and Russia in 1834.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Franklin Gallery</span> Art museum in Hobart, Australia

The Lady Franklin Gallery and Ancanthe Park is a historic sandstone museum and 2.96-hectare (7.3-acre) parkland in Lenah Valley, Tasmania, Australia. When it opened on 26 October 1843, it became the first privately funded museum in Australia.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Royal Society of Tasmania". Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Tasmanian Government. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  2. Somerville, J. (1943). "The Royal Society of Tasmania, 1843-1943" (PDF). Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania: 199–222. ISSN   0080-4703 via The University of Tasmania Open Access Repository.
  3. 1 2 "Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania for the Year 1914". www.forgottenbooks.com. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  4. "Coat of Arms carved 1930, Royal Society of Tasmania . Who was Nellie Payne?". Who was Nellie Payne?. 27 January 2016. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  5. Morrell, Elle. "Fletcher, Jane Ada (1870 - 1956)". The Australian Women's Register. University of Melbourne. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  6. "The Royal Society of London | National Museum of Australia". www.nma.gov.au. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  7. 1 2 "Royal Society of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania". Museums Victoria Collections. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  8. "Royal Society of Tasmania (RST) Library". Special & Rare Collections University of Tasmania Library. 12 August 2013.

Further reading